Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian defeated S. P. Sethuraman of India in round 9 of the Tradewise Chess Festival in Gibraltar on Wednesday, January 31 and is now among the five leaders of the tournament.

With only one round left to go, Aronian shares the first spot with Hikaru Nakamura (U.S.), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Richard Rapport (Hungary) and Daniil Dubov (Russia), with 7.0 points each.

International master Lilit Mkrtchyan, meanwhile, beat Elizabeth Hapala of Austria to take the 100th spot with 5.0 points.

In the tenth round on Thursday, Aronian and Mkrtchyan will face Nakamura and Luca Morini (Italy), respectively.